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D 570 

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0uv Jftgftt for tfje heritage 
of itomamtp 



& Sermon 




to 






Rev. William E. Barton, 


, D. D., 


LL. D. 


in tKe 






First Congregational CKurcK 


of Oak Park, Illinois 


Sunday, April i 


5. 1917 






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Published by 

TKe Men's Bible Class 

First Congregational Church 

Oak Park 



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Jforetoorb 

The following sermon by our Pastor made a strong 
impression upon the men of the Church ; and a com- 
mittee of the Men's Bible Class was appointed to wait 
upon Dr. Barton and request a copy of the manuscript 
for publication. We present it herewith to members of 
the congregation, with a request that they mail it to their 
friends in other places, for we believe it is a sermon that 
will do good. 

E. W. PRATT, 
President of the Men's Bible Class. 

Oak Park, April 19, 1917. 



0uv Jf tgf)t for tfje heritage 
of Jtomanitp 

r 

Text: And Moses said, Shall your brethren go to war, and ye sit here? . . . 
And they came near unto him and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our 
cattle, and cities for our little ones; but we ourselves will be ready-armed to go 
before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place. . . . 
We will not return unto our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited 
every man his inheritance. — Numbers 32:6, 16-18. 



Of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, rather more than three- 
quarters made their home in the region west of the Jordan, but the two 
tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manassah settled in the 
land first conquered, the land that lay east of the turbulent river, where 
the country, somewhat less valuable for agriculture, was well adapted to 
their principal business of grazing. The tribes of Gad and Reuben made 
their appeal to Moses that they might dwell in this land and not be 
compelled to cross over the river with their brethren of the other tribes. 
Moses answered them with sorrow not unmixed with indignation: "Shall 
your brethren go to the war, and shall ye sit here? And wherefore dis- 
courage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the 
land which Jehovah hath given them?" 

The answer of the two trans-Jordanic tribes was immediate and 
positive. They would not remain permanently apart from the struggle 
of their brethren. They would tarry east of the Jordan until they had 
provided for the safety and sustenance of their families, and then they 
would put themselves in the very van of the allied forces, and fight with 
them for a common cause. 

Moses was a little afraid to trust them. If they were permitted to 
settle down in security, to acquire vested interests that were in no imme- 
diate peril of invasion, he feared they would forget the common obligation 
that rested upon them with the other tribes ; and that their failure to 
enter the struggle would result in the discouragement of the allied forces, 
and possibly in the collapse of the whole plan for the occupation of 
Canaan. The promise of God to Abraham awaited as a condition of its 
fulfillment the united loyalty and endeavor of all the children of Israel. 
The spiritual destiny of the world depended, it might be, upon whether 
Reuben and Gad entered whole-heartedly into the conflict or got so 

—3— 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

interested in the sheep and cattle business as to forget the peril of their 
brethren. 

The two tribes made a solemn covenant with Moses that their isola- 
tion should not involve their failure to participate in the conflict. The 
security of their homes and children would be to them a reason why 
they could enter more unreservedly into the very front of the battle. 
Moses accepted their promise, but warned them that if they withdrew 
from the conflict before the rights of their brethren were secure, their 
sin would be great before God. It was on this occasion that those 
memorable words were spoken, "Be sure your sin will find you out." 

America is entering into a world-war. It is not to secure our shores 
from invasion, not to avenge the death of our countrymen who went 
down on the Lusitania or the Sussex, not to extend our boundaries, or 
to participate in the distribution of spoils. We are entering this conflict 
to make the rights of humanity more secure. We are engaging in a 
fight for the heritage of humanity. 

The United States has been at war with Germany since the sixth 
day of April, 1917. Germany has been at war with the United States 
ever since the day when by an act of deliberate piracy she sunk the 
Lusitania and murdered more than a hundred peaceable American citizens. 
She has been at war with humanity since the day when she violated her 
own sacred promise and invaded Belgium, her armies spreading terror 
in their front and desolation in their rear. 

Notwithstanding all the wrongs we have witnessed and endured, I 
have earnestly hoped that America would be able to maintain her neu- 
trality. I have hoped this not because I did not believe we would be 
justified in going to war, but because it seemed to me the world needed 
one great nation calm enough to endure even a provocation sufficient 
to warrant a belligerant declaration, but determined not to issue it so 
long as any other course remained that was compatible with our national 
honor and our regard for the rights of humanity. For this reason I have 
been glad of the attitude of President Wilson toward the European prob- 
lem, glad of his patience, of his willingness to be misunderstood, and of 
his determination to remain at peace, if that should be possible, in a 
time when the world had gone mad. Of his sincerity I have no shadow 
of doubt; of his love of peace I am thoroughly convinced. It was my 
good fortune to meet him for a few minutes by appointment in the White 
House on the afternoon of the 31st of January, and in a brief conversa- 
tion to hear from his own lips an affirmation of his ardent and confident 
hope, not only that America might be kept out of the war, but that his 
own address before the Senate, delivered a few days before, might have 
some part in promoting the peace of the world and defining some of 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

the essential lines along which measures looking toward that end must 
probably proceed. It was only a few hours later, on that very night, that 
he received the German note, announcing that on the following day, 
February 1st, Germany would resume her ruthless warfare, sinking neu- 
tral ships without warning. I believe that few men were more surprised, 
or smitten with deeper sorrow, by this virtual declaration of war than 
the President of the United States. I believe that in the course which 
he has followed from that day to this he has been animated by the 
noblest motives and the sinceresl devotion to what he believes to be 
his solemn duty. 

I am preaching this sermon because in coming months it will be 
necessary for me to make frequent reference to the war. Precisely what 
I shall say must be determined by events as they occur, and I am seek- 
ing to formulate, partly that I may define it to myself, the background 
against which particular utterances must be outlined. I am not preaching 
this sermon through any fear that you will misunderstand me, either 
now or hereafter. This congregation has known its minister long enough 
to be reasonably certain of his attitude in a crisis of this character. But 
some of my utterances hereafter are likely to be fragmentary and inci- 
dental, and I should like this morning to devote this entire sermon to a 
consideration of what I believe to be our fight for the heritage of humanity. 

I am a lover of peace. I have been earnestly hoping that our nation 
never again would enter into a great war. I was at one time a director 
of the national organization of the American Peace Society, and for a 
good many years was one of its vice-presidents. While I have no present 
connection with that organization, I believe in peace, and am a member 
of the National League to Enforce Peace. Earnestly and with all force 
of persuasion which I have been able to employ, I have pleaded for the 
cultivation of the ideals of peace. I still cherish those ideals, but I 
believe that if those ideals are to be preserved and handed down to pos- 
terity the time has come when we must fight for them. Deeply as I 
deplore the necessity of war, I believe that no other honorable course 
is open to us as a nation than to prosecute the war which we have entered 
upon to its complete and successful consummation. 

I bear no hatred in my heart toward Germany or her people. I do 
not believe that the German people are inherently brutal or inhuman. 
The people of German birth whom we know in America are many of 
them among our best citizens, and those of us who have traveled in 
European countries must think of Germany with a peculiar affection. 
For myself, I feel much more at home in I Germany than in France. I 
love Berlin far more than I love Paris. The German people are an affec- 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

tionate people, a home-loving people, and not by nature either a degraded 
or an inhuman people. 

Nevertheless, we shall make a great mistake if we suppose that we 
have to fight only the German kaiser. If the German people as a whole 
had not supported the German government, the present war would have 
ended long ago. Those of us who know who have been the teachers of the 
men now leading in German politics and in the German army cannot 
deceive ourselves with the illusion that we are fighting only the kaiser. 

Who are the men whom we must fight in Germany? I must men- 
tion four of them, two in the realm of philosophy and two as military 
authorities. 

One of the men we have to fight is Heinrich von Treitschke, who 
was born at Dresden in 1834 and died at Berlin in 1896. He more than 
any other one man has molded the present German mind ; and has carried 
with him the leaders of German thought in their attitude toward world- 
politics. He was not only the chief supporter of the Hohenzollern throne 
and the Prussian military spirit, but in his advocacy of colonial expansion 
he disseminated hatred of Great Britain and of all that opposed the 
progress of German world empire. Back of Germany's aggression lies 
a philosophy and a spiritual attitude. Treitschke was a historian of 
unusual ability, and an interpreter of the philosophy of history which 
has come to be accepted as the spiritual basis of Germany's dream of 
world empire. He was the most popular lecturer at the University of 
Berlin, and his work on history occupies an undisputed place in German 
teaching. His philosophy led him to support the government in its 
legislation enacted to subdue the Socialists, Poles, Catholics and Jews, 
and to inculcate a bitter hatred of all things British and incidentally of 
things American. When he thought of America he thought of her demo- 
cratic spirit as a certain check upon Germany's plan of world empire ; 
and he never ceased to declare "that the civilization of mankind suffers 
every time a German is turned into a Yankee." Inevitably Treitschke's 
vision of German world empire involved the certainty of war, and I 
want to read just one paragraph from him, which defines his conception 
of the spiritual aspect of war; for beyond all question it is Treitschke's 
philosophy which furnishes the spiritual basis of Germany's present 
thought of war. 

We have learned to recognize the moral majesty of war just in those aspects 
of it which superficial observers describe as brutal and inhuman. Men are called 
upon to overcome all natural feeling for the sake of their country, to murder 
people who have never before done them any harm, and whom they perhaps 
respect as chivalrous enemies. It is things such as these that seem at the first 
glance horrible and repulsive. Look at them again and you will see in them the 

—6— 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 



greatness of war. Not only the life of man, but also the right and natural emo- 
tions of his inmost soul, his whole ego, are to be sacrificed to a great poetic idea; 
and herein lies the moral significance of war. 

Another man whom we must fight is Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 
who was born near Leipsic in 1844 and died in 1900. I need not quote 
him at length, because his teaching is much better known than any of the 
others to whom I am now referring. His revolt against the Christian 
faith and morals made him the preacher of a new morality, which deposed 
all the Christian virtues, counting them as weakness. He scorned democ- 
racy, and declared with an intensity of passion which ultimately mani- 
fested itself in utter insanity that the vast body of human beings must 
exist to serve a much smaller group who by process of natural selection 
and dominant overlordship shall ultimately produce a race of the super- 
man. Now, Germany does not confess itself to have accepted the phil- 
osophy of Nietzsche, but there can be no denial that these principles have 
experienced tremendous growth, and an influence far beyond what Ger- 
many as a whole has been willing to confess. This philosophy, if it were 
established, would drive out all the gentler virtues from human life and 
exalt those that make for military strength and the acknowledgment of 
the rightful tyranny of the strong. 

I have quoted two philosophers, the spread of whose teaching in 
German no thoughtful man will deny. I am about to quote two author- 
ities in which these principles are definitely applied to the theory and 
practice of war. I am doing this because every recent act of German 
aggression has been defended on the basis of military necessity. Last 
Sunday some one stood at our church door and handed to members of 
this congregation as they passed out this four-page folder written to 
show us how Germany has always been devoted to the principles of 
peace, but has been reluctantly compelled to turn her pacific inventions 
to the grim uses of war because of the wickedness of Great Britain. I 
will read one or two paragraphs 

The U-boat was invented for a mail and commerce boat. But they have 
compelled Germany to make it a war boat. They have compelled Germany to 
make it a weapon of destruction, instead of a means for doing good. 

England would like to hinder us from getting first class advantages of new 
resources and new conveniences. 

It is the same with the Zeppelin. It was made as a quick means for mail and 
commerce; but they had to turn it into a war craft. 

These declarations, of course, are absurd. What I now propose to 
show is that the principles of Nietzsche and Trietschke have their logical 
expression in indisputed military authorities whose works were issued 
before the present war began. 

—7- 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

Friederich von Bernhardi issued his readable book, "Germany and 
the Next War" in 1911. His book is notable because there is not very 
much which Germany has done in the present war which he did not 
predict would be done, and he justified the doing of it. 

He said in his introduction, "I must first of all examine the aspira- 
tions for peace which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison 
the soul of our German people, according to their true moral significance. 
I must try to prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the 
life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture." 

Holding as he did that the soul of the German people was poisoned 
by aspirations for peace, he unblushingly declared that the making of 
war was a duty, and that it must be done at the time and in the manner 
when the greatest possible advantage was to be gained by it. Quoting 
Bismarck, who repeatedly declared before the German Reichstag that 
no one should ever take upon himself the immense responsibility of 
intentionally bringing about a war, Bernhardi can find no other defense 
for the man of blood and iron than that he probably did not mean it 
and certainly did not live up to it, and Bernhardi declared that — 

The greatness of true statesmanship does not shrink from the conflict which 
under the given conditions arc unavoidable, but decides them resolutely by war 
when a favorable position affords prospect of a successful issue (page 39). 

Bernhardi was not talking at random, but definitely considering 
what he regarded as a near and certain war against Great Britain and 
France, when he said that — 

The lessons of history confirm the view that wars which have been deliberately 
provoked by far-seeing statesmen have had the happiest results (page 45). 

Bernhardi's work was not unrelated to the philosophy which we 
have been considering. His book is sprinkled with quotations, especially 
from Treitschke, and the text and theme of Bernhardi's contention was 
this central axiom from Treitschke's "Politik": "Among all political sins 
the sin of feebleness is the most contemptible; it is the poltical sin 
against the Holy Ghost." 

These three names are more or less familiar to all of us. The fourth 
is Carl von Clausewitz, who was born in 1780 and died in 1831. You 
will read all about him in any encyclopedia and you will find it stated 
that his work as an exposition of the philosophy of war, "is absolutely 
unrivaled" in Germany and considered by the whole German military 
organization as "the essential basis of all serious study of the art of war." 

The book from which I am about to quote is "The Reality of War : 
An Introduction to Clausewitz" by Major Murray of the Gordon High- 
landers. It was published in London in 1909, and the significant thing 
about it is that it was not published to be refuted. Major Murray accepts 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

Clausewitz, not only as the undisputed authority in Germany, but the 
authority which must be reckoned with and ultimately adopted by all 
governments. 

In this sympathetic translation Clausewitz sets forth the three prin- 
cipal objects to be gained in carrying on war : 

1. To conquer and destroy the enemy's armed force. 2. To Rain possession of 
the material elements of aggression, and of the other sources of existence of the 
hostile army. 3. To gain public opinion. 

It is in this recognition of the military value of public opinion that 
Clausewitz stands supreme. What did Clausewitz mean by the gaining 
of public opinion? He meant, of course, that a government must have 
behind it the moral backing of the nation's own population ; but that was 
not all he meant. He meant two other things. First, "'The moral pas- 
sions which break forth in war must already have a latent existence in 
the peoples'' (p. 32). 

That is to say, international hatred must be sedulously cultivated as 
the basis of successful war. 

He meant one other thing by his emphasis upon public opinion. 
He meant the inauguration of systems of terrorism such as "to force 
the enemy's population into a state of mind favorable to submission"' 
(page 33). 

Clausewitz was in no uncertainty of mind concerning the methods 
by which this was to be done. He flouted the notion of philanthropy 
that there could be any skilful method of disarming and overcoming an 
adversary without causing great bloodshed, holding this to be a dan- 
gerous error and that of all errors in war "those which proceed from a 
spirit of benevolence are the worst." 

Clausewitz held that "to introduce into the philosophy of war a prin- 
ciple of moderation would be an absurdity." This was his axiom, his 
definition, his fundamental proposition, "War is an act of violence, which 
in its application knows no bounds." (Murray, page 39; Vom Kri 
book 1 , chapter 1.) 

Where in the theory of Clausewitz does international law come in? 
The answer of Clausewitz is that it is "hardly worth mentioning." He 
declares that power and expediency are the only rules to be recognized 
in the practical relations of nations. He says there are just two ques- 
tions which a nation must ask, and the first is "Have we sufficient power 
to do this?" and the other, "Is it expedient for us to do this?" I p. 5 

What about treaties? What reliance are we to place upon the sacred 
pledge and plighted honor of a nation? His answer is, "None whatever." 
"Only in ourselves can we trust." All treaties in his theory are on their 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

way to the waste-basket, and a treaty is valid only so long as it is to the 
interest of either nation to regard it so. 

Now, I must ask you to believe that I am not quoting from an 
isolated teacher, whose theories are obsolete. These are the theories of 
the acknowledged teacher of all the German generals. More than that, 
there is imminent peril that they will come to be accepted teachings of 
the armies of the world. 

I place here on the pulpit these four books; — Treitschke, Nietzsche, 
Bernhardi, Clausewitz. I have quoted from them truthfully some pass- 
ages that fairly represent their spirit and their fundamental teaching, 
and I say deliberately that the great question now to be settled in this 
present war is whether the future is to be dominated by the ideals of 
these four books, or this other one, the Holy Bible, the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 

The reason I quote these authorities at length is this. I want to 
make it plain that the acts of frightfulness in which Germany has 
engaged, including the desolation of Belgium, a full moral share of 
responsibility for the massacres in Armenia, the sinking of the Lusitania, 
and her present ruthless submarine warfare, are not the result of an 
after-thought, or a grim necessity forced upon her unexpectedly by the 
exigencies of war. They are the logical and normal expressions of the 
kind of warfare which every German officer has been systematically 
taught. When the German fleet approached the coast of England and 
bombarded unfortified towns, knowing that the shells were killing non- 
combatants, including women and children, that was a part of what 
Clausewitz had taught all German military and naval authorities to 
regard as the most effective way to wage war by exciting terror among 
the enemy's population. When Germany sends her Zeppelins by night 
to drop bombs on sleeping villages, far from camps and naval stations, 
knowing that the people killed will largely be women and babies, she 
does not do it because military necessity forces her to drop bombs in 
other places than on forts and warships. It is entirely untrue that 
Germany sought to wage this war humanely and was compelled by 
unexpected events to adopt ruthless methods. She has taught all her 
officers that ruthlessness is an important element in successful warfare. 

I do not forget that the British and French also have been guilty 
of terrible deeds. Neither do I forget that we are dependent to a large 
degree upon Great Britain for our information concerning the actual 
atrocities which the Germans are alleged to have committed, but the 
writings I have been reading to you are not the product of British 
prejudice or misinformation. I have read from authorized translations 
that were made before the war. 

—10— 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

But we are not wholly dependent upon translations, nor upon the 
possible misinterpretations of the British. I have here a yellow poster. 
It is an exact fac-simile of the proclamation which General von Emmich 
distributed among the civil population of Belgium on August 4, 1914, 
the day the German army violated Belgian neutrality. It is in French, 
and you will not find it difficult to read, if you know even a little French. 
It says this, among other things : 

I give formal pledges to the Belgian population that it will have nothing to 
suffer from the horrors of war, that we will pay in gold for the provisions that 
must be taken from the country and that our soldiers will prove themselves the 
best of friends to a people for whom we feel the highest esteem and the greatest 
sympathy. 

That promise was a scrap of paper. Before the end of that month 
this is the kind of placards that were posted in the villages of Belgium. 
I show it to you in this orange-colored poster. The village of Luneville 
is required to furnish within 48 hours 100,000 cigars, or 200,000 cigar- 
ettes, 50,000 litres of wine, 1,000 kilos of tea or cocoa, and other articles 
which you may read, and it i- expressly stated that all appeals will be 
null and void. 

Here is another poster on paper the same color, printed on the 
same press four days later, demanding of the same population by nine 
o'clock on the third day thereafter 650,000 francs. 

Now, here is an interesting thing about these two posters. The 
first of them is dated August 29, 1914, and the second September 3, 
1914. In this second handbill a reason is given for this large indemnity, 
namely, that on the 25th of August certain inhabitants of Luneville had 
fired upon the German soldiers. If that was true, why was there no 
mention of it in the proclamation of the 29th? Apparently the heavy 
requisition for tobacco, wine and other comfortable articles was met so 
promptly that the Germans knew they could have more for the asking. 
The first requisition was in direct defiance of the 52n<l and 53rd Articles 
of The Hague Convention, and the second had attached to it this 
warning : 

In case of non-payment, house to house visits will be made and all the inhabi- 
tants will be searched. Any person who has deliberately concealed money or 
tried to withhold goods from seizure by the military authorities, or who attempts 
to leave the town will be shot. 

He who considers what is meant by a house to house visit in a 
matter of this character need not be surprised to know that the indemnity 
was paid. But the visit was made, under the direction of a German 
officer who had been living in the town as a civilian and who knew just 
where to go. 

—11— 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

Here is a poster in plain black and white, issued by General von 
Bulow on August 22, 1914, as a warning to Liege. It is very short and 
to the point. 

The population of Andenne, after making a display of peaceful intentions 
toward our troops, attacked them in a most treacherous manner. With my 
authorization the general commanding these troops has reduced the town to 
ashes and has had 110 persons shot. I bring this fact to the knowledge of the 
people at Liege in order that they may know what fate to expect should they 
adopt a similar attitude. 

The people of Andenne, or those who are left of them, deny that 
there was any firing upon the German troops. I do not know whether 
they tell the truth or not. I only show the poster, and remark in passing 
that the 110 persons shot are said actually to have been 250, all of them 
civilians, and to have included men, women and children. 

Here is another orange-colored proclamation. It enumerates certain 
crimes for which people are to be shot on sight, including among the 
rest that of digging potatoes in their own gardens. 

Here is a green proclamation, which warns the people of Luneville 
that a considerable number of hostages from the working class as well 
as from the middle class have been taken into custody, and that it is well 
for the people of that town not to watch too closely any aircraft that fly 
over Luneville, and that if there should be an attempt at communication 
these hostages will be shot. 

Here is another orange-colored proclamation, announcing the names 
of four men who had been shot at Lille on September 25, 1915, the day 
this notice is issued, two of them for having sheltered an English aviator 
who alighted in their neighborhood. For saving his life they lost their 
own. 

Here is another, issued at Brussels on plain white paper, warning 
all people who live near railways and telegraph lines that if those lines 
are tampered with all the inhabitants near "will be punished without 
mercy whether they are guilty of this destruction or not." It further 
states that hostages have been taken who in case of such destruction 
will be shot immediately. 

Here is another on white paper, dated at Liile, in April, 1916. No 
single date was given because it was designed to be used as there was 
occasion. All occupants of a house on w T hich this notice was posted, 
with the exception of children under 14 and their mothers, and also of 
old people, must prepare themselves for transportation "in an hour and 
half's time." "All appeals will be useless," so the notice says, and they 
were useless. A large proportion of these people thus transported to 
unknown destinations were women and girls. A report has been made 
upon that terrible deportation, and you may read it if you like, but this 

—12— 



OUR FIGKT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

is a photographic fac-simile of the notice, and the time allowed for 
preparation was an hour and a half. 

I have here one proclamation on pretty blue paper. It was issued 
at Brussels, October 12, 1915. It announces the death of six people, with 
the condemnation to servitude for terms of from two to fifteen years of 
twenty-one others. The name at the top of the list is that of Edith 
Cavell; and the statement is made that while some of the others were 
yet to be shot, they had not waited in her case for the printing of the 
notice. She was already dead. 

I have shown these "Scraps of Paper 5 ' for two reasons, first because 
they illustrate precisely what Clausewitz meant in his declaration that 
in war the effectiveness of the moral as compared to the physical element 
is three to one; that is to say, the effect of this "frightfulness" in the 
subjugation of a people is three times as effective as the actual victories 
to be won by fighting in the trenches. If Germany by any means could 
land an invading force upon our shores and her armies could take pos- 
session of Chicago, these are the kind of notices which you would find 
posted up on your door tomorrow morning and on this church next 
Sunday. 

If Germany wins the present war she will win it by these methods. 
And that is not the worst of it. These will thereby become the accred- 
ited methods of successful warfare. The armies not of Germany only 
but of the world will think themselves compelled to adopt these tactics. 
Make no mistake about that. The thing we are fighting for is to deter- 
mine whether theories that are definitely based upon such a philosophy 
as that of Nietzsche and Treitschke, and a policy of warfare admittedly 
based upon Bernhardi and Clausewitz, are to dominate the future of the 
civilized world. If Germany wins, this is the way the wars of the future 
are to be fought. Soldiers and politicians will unite in declaring that 
Mars is the god of this world. You and I do not believe that. The 
governments that are fighting Germany do not believe that, or if they 
do they will not admit it. Woodrow Wilson does not believe it. That 
is why we are at war. We are fighting for humanity; we are fighting 
for the heritage of mankind. We will not return from this war to our 
isolation and security on this side the water till the whole human race 
has been liberated from the despotism and despair of this doctrine. That 
is why we are fighting. 

Some of the graces of personal and national life are best promoted 
under the inspiration of peace. It will be a glad day for the world when 
wars cease and nations beat their swords into plowshares. But that 
day has not yet come. It belongs to us to cultivate now those strong 
elements in character which grow out of the conditions of conflict. Life 

—13— 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

is a soldier's battle. Courage and patriotism call for a devotion for 
which men must sometimes die. It belongs to us to find those qualities 
of soul which can be cultivated in the conditions which our nation is 
facing. 

Can we fight effectively without hatred? Can we go to war and 
still obey the royal law of love? It will be difficult. War thrives on 
hatred, and that is one of the worst facts about it. Nations have fought 
largely because of their lust for territory, or their hatred of each other. 
Can America go to war and keep her heart free from the corrosion of 
hate? 

If we are to fight without hatred and yet fight effectively it will 
need to be because we hold clearly in mind some high and altruistic 
ideal, which our conflict is waged to strengthen. We must find a sub- 
stitute for hatred in a larger love. We must seek a nobler motive than 
that of territorial conquest in our conviction that we are fighting the 
battle of humanity. Not solely or even chiefly for the protection of our 
commerce, nor even solely for the upholding of our national honor, do 
we fight, but that human rights may be secure and the liberties of all 
men made larger. So long as small nations are in peril of invasion by 
large ones under plea of military necessity ; so long as citizens of neutral 
nations are liable to destruction without warning by the deliberate act 
of nations at war; so long as humanity is compelled to struggle on its 
upward path, weighed down by the heavy cross of militarism and auto- 
cratic despotism, there will be something which humanity may and ought 
to fight for. America has kept out of the conflict thus far and hoped 
and prayed that she might continue to keep out, but the battle now is 
on. We are fighting not for greed or hatred but for the heritage of 
humanity. 

What the Jordan was to Reuben and Gad, the Atlantic ocean is to 
America. Three thousand miles of water separate us from the roar of the 
guns of Europe. The ocean is none too wide. We are glad of all that 
it makes possible to us of separation from the deep-seated causes of the 
present struggle, and the tragic years that must follow it. But shall we 
sit calmly here and see the common heritage of civilization slaughtered? 
Shall we look on indifferently while the world bleeds to death? We have 
never been indifferent. Every wound, every heartbreak in Europe, has 
been felt, more or less keenty, here. Vaguely we have felt from the first 
that while the width of the ocean and the traditions of our government 
might keep us, as we hoped they would, apart from actual bloodshed, 
we must somehow share in the sacrifice and sorrow of the world. We 
did not know how we should have to do it, but we are beginning to know. 
Notwithstanding our best effort to have it otherwise, we are now at war; 



OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY 

and we arc entering the conflict, not recklessly nor boastfully, but with a 
unity of purpose and an assurance that our nation is answering a call to 
arms that is nothing less than a high summons to a solemn duty. There 
are times when the the plowshare must be beaten back into a sword 
again, and this is one of the times. We are fighting not alone for our 
country and our flag; we are fighting also for the rights of all the 
children of men. 

Can we fight without hatred? Can we wage successful warfare 
and at the same time love our enemies? It will not be easy to do so, 
but it is not impossible. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant did 
not hate the men against whom they fought; and out of that war, which 
no foreign nation forced upon us, we emerged a free and united nation. 
When we went into Cuba, we did not hate the Spaniards; William 
McKinley loved his enemies, and Captain Jack Philip restrained his 
men in the moment of victory out of sympathy for his conquered and 
dying foes. Our marines marched with those of the European nations 
from the coast to Peking to rescue our ambassador and our missionaries 
at the time of the Boxer outbreak, and we did not hate the Chinese, but 
gave them back the indemnity to which we were entitled. We have 
learned, measurably, how to fight without hatred. This present war will 
put a far greater strain upon us in that regard. Let us pray God not 
only for a victory over those whom we must fight, but for that greater 
conquest which is the mastery of our own spirit. God has lessons to 
teach us as well as other nations. Let us be ready to learn those lessons. 

And let us be sure what we arc fighting for. Not for territory. 
Germany does not own a foot of soil that we covet. Xot for indemnity. 
Germany is an impoverished nation, and we do not need her money, and 
if she could pay it we would much prefer that she should pay it to Belgium. 
Not for revenge, and not for glory. I do not believe either of these have 
entered into our motives as a nation. We are fighting for nothing less 
than the inherent rights of mankind. We are fighting to rebuke the 
affirmation that treaties are to be regarded as scraps of paper. We are 
fighting to disprove the alleged right of large nations to gain their place 
in the sun at the expense of small nations' place on the map. We arc 
fighting for the freedom of the seas. We are fighting for the sanctity 
of the soil. We are fighting that the world may rise above the wicked 
and cruel despotism that now crushes it, from the load of armament and 
wasteful taxation that now overburdens it, to the enjoyment of an abid- 
ing peace that is based upon righteousness and international justic. We 
have a righteous cause, an unselfish cause, a cause worth sacrifice and 
devotion. We are fighting for the heritage of humanity. 



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Hollinger Corp. 
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